Athletes often hold certain expectations and many of them are unhealthy. For an athlete to expect to achieve a certain score in a game or to compile specific statistics in a game or to reach a certain number of wins in a season can hold that athlete back. When you have expectations about how you will perform, you are constantly comparing how you ARE performing to how you think you SHOULD be performing. That can lead to several problems. If you are not performing as well as you think you should be or as well as you expected to, you could become frustrated. That will negatively affect your performance. If you are performing better than you expected, you could pull back, become less aggressive and limit what your performance could have been.
Learn more about expectations and other mental roadblocks at: www.yourmentalgamecoach.com.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Happy Birthday Coach John Wooden
John Wooden is 99 years old today. He has shared so many lessons on and off of the court and has shaped the lives of so many that he needs to be acknowledged. If you would like to know how life lessons are learned through sports, or just learn some valuable life lessons, read one of his books. His "Pyramid of Success" ties in with the principles we teach at www.yourmentalgamecoach.com.
www.yourmentalgamecoach.com
Sunday, October 11, 2009
MOTIVATION
Motivation is an important factor in anything you do. Most serious athletes are highly motivated individuals. But is all motivation good and healthy? Do all forms of motivation help athletes perform at their very best? I don't believe so.
Athletes that are intrinsically motivated have an internal desire to compete. They have a fire burning within that drives them to work hard to reach their goals. It is the love of the game and the love of the competition that drives these athletes. These athletes will also be likely develop the necessary mental toughness to match their physical abilities. They are likely to consistently remain motivated.
Athletes that are extrinsically motivated depend on external rewards for their motivation, such as trophies, praise or other awards. While it is always nice to receive praise and recognition for a job well done, if that is the primary source of an athlete's motivation, that athlete is likely to suffer from motivational difficulties. What happens when the reward is not present at the end? Does the athlete not try as hard? Does he temporarily lose motivation? When the rewards for performing one's sport become more important than the actual performance itself, that is a danger sign. That athlete will most likely experience motivational problems.
There are ways to deal with these issues and many other mental roadblocks that hold athletes back.
www.yourmentalgamecoach.com
Athletes that are intrinsically motivated have an internal desire to compete. They have a fire burning within that drives them to work hard to reach their goals. It is the love of the game and the love of the competition that drives these athletes. These athletes will also be likely develop the necessary mental toughness to match their physical abilities. They are likely to consistently remain motivated.
Athletes that are extrinsically motivated depend on external rewards for their motivation, such as trophies, praise or other awards. While it is always nice to receive praise and recognition for a job well done, if that is the primary source of an athlete's motivation, that athlete is likely to suffer from motivational difficulties. What happens when the reward is not present at the end? Does the athlete not try as hard? Does he temporarily lose motivation? When the rewards for performing one's sport become more important than the actual performance itself, that is a danger sign. That athlete will most likely experience motivational problems.
There are ways to deal with these issues and many other mental roadblocks that hold athletes back.
www.yourmentalgamecoach.com
Saturday, October 3, 2009
"Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical".
--Yogi Berra
While Yogi Berra is well known for his many quotes, this one in particular is my favorite. It speaks to the mental aspect of the game of baseball and shows how much significance one of the greatest players in history put on that phase of the game. I believe that a lot of the best athletes in history would feel that same way when it comes to performing at the highest level in their particular sport.
Even though the mental aspect of sports is so significant, it is all but ignored when most athletes are training for their sport. Starting at a very young age, athletes are taught to work on their drills, take 100 swings a day or shoot 100 free throws a day. But they are never taught how to build a healthy confidence in themselves, how to concentrate better or how to reach their optimal mental conditions that would allow them to perform at their best. They are never taught how to deal with the mental roadblocks that arise at some point in every athlete's career.
Learn how to identify mental roadblocks and how to get over them. Learn how to build your confidence and improve your mental game so that you can perform at your very best.
www.yourmentalgamecoach.com
--Yogi Berra
While Yogi Berra is well known for his many quotes, this one in particular is my favorite. It speaks to the mental aspect of the game of baseball and shows how much significance one of the greatest players in history put on that phase of the game. I believe that a lot of the best athletes in history would feel that same way when it comes to performing at the highest level in their particular sport.
Even though the mental aspect of sports is so significant, it is all but ignored when most athletes are training for their sport. Starting at a very young age, athletes are taught to work on their drills, take 100 swings a day or shoot 100 free throws a day. But they are never taught how to build a healthy confidence in themselves, how to concentrate better or how to reach their optimal mental conditions that would allow them to perform at their best. They are never taught how to deal with the mental roadblocks that arise at some point in every athlete's career.
Learn how to identify mental roadblocks and how to get over them. Learn how to build your confidence and improve your mental game so that you can perform at your very best.
www.yourmentalgamecoach.com
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